Symbian opens R&D center in Beijing — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Seven companies, six universities} Symbian opens R&D center in Beijing

29 Aug 2007 at 13:50 GMT Timo Poropudas

Symbian has announced the establishment of a global R&D center in Beijing, China. The center is Symbian's fourth R&D center with the others located in the UK and India.

Speaking in Beijing, Nigel Clifford, Chief Executive Officer, Symbian, said, "China has a vital role to play in our strategy for continued global leadership with over 700 applications originating from China over the past two years and 12 percent of Symbian smartphones shipped in China during Q2 2007, representing 77 percent year on year growth, according to Canalys."

At the inauguration ceremony, Symbian announced that seven Chinese companies have joined the Symbian Platinum Program, a partnership scheme which represents key technology innovators and service providers in the mobile industry.

Symbian also unveiled details for a local Symbian Academy program in collaboration with several local universities. The Symbian Academy is designed to facilitate universities creating courses that teach Symbian software development and to introduce a Symbian program into existing computer science courses.

The new partners are: Aspire Holdings, Ltd., Intromobile Co., Ltd., Leadtone Wireless, Ltd., Beijing Netqin Tech Co., Ltd., Tencent Technology Ltd., Simlife Science & Technology Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Temobi Science & Tech Development Co., Ltd.

The six Chinese universities involved with Symbian Academy are: Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Beihang University, Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tongji University, Nanjing University and Daqing Petroleum Institute. Approximately 800 Chinese students have been trained under this program to date with numbers expecting to double by the end of the year. Currently the global Symbian Academy program offers coursework and developer materials to students in 32 universities in 14 countries.